Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33

30 Jul 2018 — 14 Jul 2019

Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33 features around seventy paintings and works on paper, illustrating the paradoxes of art during the Weimar era, during which liberalisation and anti-militarism flourished along with political and economic uncertainty.

The therm “magic realism”was introduced by the critic Franz Roh to describe the change from the expressionist imaginary to the disturbing one of the inter-war period, reflecting the uncertainty of after-conflict times. Berlin in particular attracted a reputation for moral depravity and decadence in the context of the economic collapse. The exhibition groups works by varied artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Albert Birkle and Rudolf Schlichter which represented these years, the so-called Weimar period, in all their aspects. The show offers also the rare opportunity to view a range of artworks not ordinarily on public display – some of which have never been seen in the United Kingdom before – and to see a selection of key Tate works returned to the context in which they were originally created and exhibited nearly one hundred years ago.

Curators

Contacts & Details

Tate Modern is one of the main art institutions Britain, as part of the Tate group (including Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives).

Housed in the former Bankside Power Station, in 1995 Herzog & de Meuron reinvent the building instead of demolishing it and later added a new adjacent venue which opened in 2016.

The collections in Tate Modern consist of works of international modern and contemporary art dating from 1900 until today. The Turbine Hall, which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace. It is used to display large specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists.